Tag: Storage

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Mammoth tusks and cocktail sticks

By Pete Brown, Move Project Assistant

As part of the Museum of Natural History Move Project Team I have helped move and repackage tens of thousands of specimens since 2017, removing boxes filled at any time over the last 150 years from their old storage location in a deconsecrated church building near Oxford.

At our new facility we have been documenting and repacking the contents in new, clean containers and placing them in environmentally stable, safe warehouses specially adapted for museum storage.

Some objects are trickier to store than others. Things that are long, heavy, curvy and fragile are tricky. Mammoth tusks are long, heavy, curvy, and fragile. This means:

  1. They’re not going to fit in a normal box.
  2. They’re going to be difficult to move around.
  3. That beautiful curve will mean that all the weight of the tusk may be bearing down on just two small contact points where the tusk meets the storage surface.
  4. Because those points are fragile, they’re likely to get damaged.
A lot of weight can rest on small areas of the tusk, putting strain on the specimen and potentially causing damage

The tusk in this article is a prime example. The area nearest the camera in the photo above provided just a tiny point of contact with the floor and was very loose, almost to the point of detaching. It needed to be repaired, and stored in such a way that it wouldn’t get damaged again.

Pete Brown carries out delicate conservation work on the mammoth tusk

I filled some of the missing areas around the fragile area with an easily removable fine acrylic putty to prevent further movement and loss of the original material. A cotton tape sling helped to suspend the fragment in place during the work.

Thick plastazote provided a sturdy, slightly yielding bed for the tusk to lie on in storage, but to prevent the tusk from getting damaged again more needed be done to reduce the pressure on the points of contact.

The dark grey foam material, plastazote, is often used as a cushioned support for museum objects

I cut depressions into the plastazote where the tusk naturally lay to increase the total surface area supporting the weight of the tusk, and fixed plastazote wedges and supports in place with cocktail sticks to again increase the contact area and prevent movement. Cotton fabric ties, fed through slits in the plastazote, also helped to guard against unwanted movement.

Cocktail sticks: not just for cheese and pineapple

The repaired end of the tusk is now only supporting a fraction of the weight it used to, and once the tusk and the plastazote bed are placed into their new custom-made crate it will be ready for long-term, safe, damage-free storage!

The end of the tusk after treatment

To keep up with all the move project action, follow the museum hashtag #storiesfromthestore on Twitter @morethanadodo.

 

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Kelp our corals!

Many people know about the importance of conserving coral reefs to protect marine biodiversity, but here at the museum we also need to conserve the corals that are in our collections. These specimens provide a valuable picture of the diversity of life in the ocean, and document changes seen over time, which is more important than ever. So it’s essential that our conservation team make sure these corals are in the best shape possible. Stefani Cavazos, an intern from UCL’s MSc in Conservation for Archaeology and Museums, tells us how they’re going to do it.

As part of the ongoing effort to improve the museum’s collections storage we decided to give our soft corals and sponges a bit of TLC through some repacking and reorganisation.

This collection – a mix of old display material and specimens not formally accessioned to the museum collection – isn’t currently stored as well as it could be and there is a danger of breakages and damage. The specimens are packed in non-conservation grade materials, such as cardboard boxes, which are notorious for creating acidic gases that can damage delicate specimens.

The current housing of our soft coral and sponge collection

So a new project, Kelp our Corals, will focus on two areas of improvement.

First, we’ll remove all old packaging and repack using new bespoke storage boxes made from conservation grade materials. At the same time, specimens will be photographed, catalogued, and given accession numbers.

The goal is not only to rehouse the coral and sponge collection, but to also make it more accessible to the public for use in teaching and for research. We don’t have a lot of documentation for these corals, so hopefully the project will help us fill in some gaps: Where did these specimens come from? What can they tell us about life on a reef?

Large specimens are improperly laid on their sides with no protection from the environment and dust, causing weight stress on the specimen

Would you like to kelp, er, sorry – help? We are looking to recruit volunteers to help us with the work. We’re aiming to start in mid-February and finish by May this year. If you are interested in gaining some museum and conservation experience, or like to work with your hands, please do get in touch at volunteering@museums.ox.ac.uk.

Credit for image at top of post: USFWS/Jim Maragos via Creative Commons

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Stories from the Stores

by Hannah Allum, Move Project Manager

Museums are space-hungry places. There’s rarely enough room to properly house the collections we currently hold, never mind finding space for new material. Roughly 90% of museum collections are not on public display, so many museums use storage beyond their main building, in offsite stores.

The Museum of Natural History has faced the same challenges and, for the past few decades, has found a solution in a somewhat surprising building. Where might you least expect to find a vast collection of rocks and fossils dating back millions of years? How about a nineteenth century church, complete with beautiful stained glass windows?!

Stained glass windows in the former church

As atmospheric as it is, this deconsecrated church is no place for good quality museum storage. To do the collections justice they need a monitored and controlled environment, suitable containers and pest prevention measures. Plus, it’s always a bonus to be able to access specimens without playing a very nerve-wracking game of Jenga or Tetris!

Carving detail in the former church

So, once again we are faced with the most terrifying and exciting of museum tasks; a collections move project! In 2016 we successfully relocated approximately 17,000 specimens from some of our old offsite stores and showed you some behind the scenes secrets along the way with the hashtag #storiesfromthestores. This time we have a team of eager beavers (also known as project assistants) who can’t wait to share glimpses of the project as we go, so make sure to keep an eye on @morethanadodo on Twitter.

An oats box made an unusual storage solution for Earth materials

After a much needed clean of the church, we’re starting to prepare the material to be moved. Alongside the specimens, we’re already coming across some interesting historical packaging. It seems that the mass consumption of Oxo cubes was a pre-requisite for collectors of old, as many specimens are stored in these retro tins. A few other repurposed boxes include; Quaker oats, Sharp’s toffee, Fry’s chocolates, marmalade, mustard oil and even wine crates. Quite the picnic!

A toffee tin for storing fossils – just one of the interesting choices for collections tins over the years.

Once removed from the church, the project team will be working on processing these collections in a dedicated space, as well as giving them some TLC and new homes (boxes). This will take place at a specialist heritage storage site until the end of 2018. Keep your eyes peeled for more on the treasures from this trove.